Last week on Pro: a guide for the cloud curious and social at work (literally)

Following the epic, 3.5-hour long keynote at Google I/O this week, all eyes were on the Moscone Center as Google rolled out a series of new products, devices, and features. The three-day event was packed with announcements, including the launch of Google Music, big upgrades for Google+ and Google Maps, and a lot more — check out our full I/O event coverage to catch up on the big news and themes that emerged from the show.

Meanwhile, over on GigaOM Pro our analysts focused on the cloud (also a major topic at Google I/O), writing a veritable how-to manual for companies considering a cloud implementation.

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Note: GigaOM Pro is a subscription-based research service offering in-depth, timely analysis of developing trends and technologies. Visit pro.gigaom.com to learn more about it.

Is your company considering a cloud implementation? Analyst David Linthicum provided a user’s guide for enterprise users making a transition to the cloud, emphasizing the need to create a “holistic plan and architecture” to avoid the chaos of an ad hoc system and the pitfalls of a failed cloud implementation. While there’s no single path to the cloud that will work for all companies, Linthicum analyzed responses from a series of end-user interviews about understanding a company’s requirements, identifying the tradeoffs of different types of cloud implementations (and major vendors in each category), and considering the economic benefits of switching to a cloud implementation.

Our colleagues over at paidContent have been following Apple’s recent ebook price-fixing conspiracy lawsuit. Now, analyst Paul Sweeting weighs in with his take on the situation, attributing Apple’s stubborn refusal to settle the case (as its five co-defendents have) to the company’s fears that “acknowledging wrongdoing in the ebook case, even implicitly, could constrain its ability to enter new media markets in the future.” While Apple’s rigid business policies are responsible for the success of its signature products, such as iTunes, Sweeting argued that this inflexibility has grave implications for Apple as it moves forward.

What would Margaret Mead have to say about Facebook? Analyst Stowe Boyd took a theory-based approach in his latest report, arguing that simply adding a social layer to existing business tools is ineffective and unlikely to work in the long term. Instead, Boyd presented the 3C model, an approach to categorizing business cultures and applying a “psychodynamic cultural model” to each type of business environment. Rather than analyzing a specific set of vendors or tools, Boyd provided a set of theoretical scenarios, a study of social network adoption in the workplace, and the arc of business culture, with specific applications to the software industry.